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Posts Tagged ‘Gigantour’

GIGANTOUR

Megadeth

Motorhead, Volbeat and Lacuna Coil

Feb 18, 2012 6:00 PM

The Big Four (Stampede Park)

Calgary, AB, Canada

Live review & pics by Monika Deviat

Gigantour, the traveling heavy metal festival created by frontman Dave Mustaine of Megadeth, stopped in Calgary Alta., on February 18, 2012 for the third time since the festival’s inception in 2005. This year’s festival also featured England’s metal legends Motorhead, who probably played a large part in selling out the venue. Italy’s Lacuna Coil and Denmark’s Volbeat rounded out the bill and added a bit of diversity. Unfortunately the tour hit one of the worst large venues in Calgary for sound. The Big Four building is a concrete box with large pillars breaking up the sound and view. Surprisingly though, the overall sound for the evening was fairly decent. One great idea someone had was to have the line-up for doors inside the building. Underneath the hall where the bands played, a corral was set up (how fitting for a city known as Cowtown) for fans to line up (get herded) and stay warm.

MEGADETH are excited to re-launch, for the first time since 2008, their critically acclaimed package festival, Gigantour. The multi-artist bill – with metal heavyweights MOTÖRHEAD, VOLBEAT and LACUNA COIL, all personally picked by Dave Mustaine – will kick off in early 2012 with dates tentatively set for late January through early March. Gigantour was founded by Mustaine in 2005 and was last in North America in May 2008.

The first Gigantour 2012 dates announced are:

January

26 – Susquehanna Bank Center – Camden, NJ

27 – Mohegan Sun Arena – Uncasville, CT

28 – Theater at Madison Square Garden – New York, NY

29 – Tsongas Arena – Lowell, MA

February

1 – Glens Falls Civic Center – Glens Falls, NY

2 – Colisee Pepsi – Quebec City, QC

3 – Bell Centre – Montreal, QC

5 – K-Rock Centre – Kingston, ON

7 – General Motors Centre – Oshawa, ON

8 – Copps Coliseum – Hamilton, ON

9 – Palace of Auburn Hills – Auburn Hills, MI

10 – Aragon Ballroom – Chicago, IL

12 – Eagles Ballroom – Milwaukee, WI

14 – Myth – St. Paul, MN

16 – Prairieland – Saskatoon, SK

17 – Shaw Conference Centre – Edmonton, AB

18 – Big 4 Building – Calgary, AB

20 – Abbotsford Ent & Sports Centre – Abbotsford, BC

21 – Showare Center – Kent, WA

23 – Event Center at San Jose State University – San Jose, CA

24 – Gibson Amphitheatre – Universal City, CA

25 – Comerica Theatre – Phoenix, AZ

26 – Tingley Coliseum – Albuquerque, NM

28 – The Fillmore Auditorium – Denver, CO

Tickets for the Quebec City and Montreal dates go on sale Saturday, November 5th at 12 noon, available at:

Bell Centre Box Office

By phone: (514) 790-2525 or 1 877 668-8269

Order online: evenko.ca

Ticket prices: $63 / $68 / $73 (taxes and service fees included)

For other ticket information visit Ticketmaster. More dates to be announced soon.

Gigantour is a chance to, as Mustaine says, tour with like-minded artists “that play heavy music in a high-energy environment,” with a fan-friendly ticket price. He founded the tour in 2005 and invited such artists as ANTHRAX, DREAM THEATER, FEAR FACTORY, LAMB OF GOD, OPETH, STATIC-X, and IN FLAMES to join Megadeth. For Lacuna Coil, Gigantour 2012 marks a return to the tour, as they performed on the 2007 Australian tour; the Italian heavy metal group’s singer Cristina Scabbia also appeared on Megadeth’ 2007 re-recording of their song, ‘A Tout Le Monde’.

You have to wonder about the inner workings of promoters who put on a 5 band festival for an 18+ audience and start it at 5.30 pm on a weekday…the second night of Gigantour in Sydney had no age restrictions and that was the night when I left work 2 pm to get to Luna Park Big Top, situated under the north side of Sydney Harbour Bridge, in time for LACUNA COIL playing second.

$100 for a 30 minute set is pretty rich but after a 6-year wait to see them live at Wacken this year, I wanted to see them again and on a smaller stage and was rewarded with a performance that didn’t diminish in anything for the smaller everything.

Opening with To The Edge LACUNA COIL’s was big from the start. The Italian passion coursed through the band’s veins with big sounds, big voices and big movements.

Interview & All Live Photos By Lord of The Wasteland; Promo Pics Courtesy of Roadrunner Records

Transcription By Claudia

Many readers’ first exposure to Dez Fafara may have been in the late nineties when he was fronting nu-metal band Coal Chamber but after that group disbanded in 2002, Fafara ventured out on his own with his new group, DevilDriver. On their just-released third album, THE LAST KIND WORDS, DevilDriver combine heavy grooves with dark lyrics and some impressive guitar melodies that have sprung up here and, to a lesser extent, on 2004’s THE FURY OF OUR MAKER’S HAND.

A few hours before the band was scheduled to hit the stage for the Hartford, Connecticut stop of Ozzfest 2007, I spoke to Fafara about THE LAST KIND WORDS, the merits of the Hammond B3 organ, turning forty, spirituality and kicking the ass of Venom singer, Cronos.